Moral science has two halves. There are the implications of thinking straight about fact and value (ideal theory) and there are the implications of not thinking straight. Ideal theory is the foundation, error theory the daily battle.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Obama's lie to Kyl reveals his true objective: open borders AND amnesty

It is commonly understood that securing the border would make it EASIER to grant citizenship to our current crop of illegal aliens. Few Americans want to kick long-time illegals out of the country, but people know that if the borders are not secured first then any talk of amnesty will increase the flood of illegal immigration as Mexicans jump across the border to get in on it and to get in line for future amnesties. That will make our illegal alien problem worse, not better, making amnesty a non-starter. Only if the borders are secured first does amnesty become viable.

So why did Obama pretend in his discussion with Senator Kyl that securing the border would make it HARDER to achieve amnesty? Here is Kyl's account of the discussion:

“The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

An Obama spokesman issued a nominal denial that actually confirmed Obama's linking of border security to amnesty, and Senator McCain now adds that Obama also told him that he would not move on border security without amnesty.

Thus we have a conundrum. Obama is saying something extraordinarily impolitic: that he is holding border security hostage to amnesty. Yet this impolitic admission is clearly not true. Our unsecured border is the great obstacle to the passage of any sort of amnesty. The only reason to admit such a damaging falsehood is if the truth is even worse, and indeed, we can be certain that this is the case.

If Obama wanted both border security and amnesty then he would secure the border today, paving the way for some sort of amnesty later in his term. He is adamantly against this path, yet we know that does want half of it: he does want amnesty. The only conclusion is that what he actually wants is amnesty without border security. In other words: his goal is to kill the hostage.

Which is no surprise. Our entire Democrat political class is in favor of amnesty without border security, especially after the last amnesty-without-border-security bill, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986, worked out so well for them. The '86 amnesty spawned the prospect of future amnesties, which in the absence of border security only added to the flow of illegal immigration (almost entirely Hispanic):

Between 87 and 88 the number of illegal aliens dipped from 5 million to 2 million as 3 million illegals took advantage of the amnesty to become American citizens. The number of illegals was back up to 5 million by 1996 and has grown apace ever since. This has been good for Democrats, who Hispanic voters favor by a wide margin (voting 67 to 31 for Obama over McCain in 2008), so it is not surprising that Democrat politicians are highly motivated both to grant amnesty (so current illegal Mexicans can vote), and to keep the border open (to bring in more future Democrats).

Of course Democrats cannot be honest about this strategy of securing their own power by serving foreign interests. Such treason sits very poorly with vast majority of Americans of both parties, so Obama tried to hide the full maliciousness of his agenda by admitting only half of it: that he is holding border security hostage. It's nice to get that much on him. Just understand the full import. Obama has no intention of swapping the border-security hostage for any amount of concessions. He means to take the concessions AND kill the hostage.

UPDATE: Kyl has issued a supposed walk-back that has exactly the same implication as his initial statement. If anything, it paints Obama in even worse light.

Now Kyl claims that when he said “They are holding [border security] hostage,” he was really paraphrasing Obama's complaint about his own political base. It is THEY who are holding border security hostage to amnesty, and poor Obama is supposedly powerless to oppose this political reality.

This is not a walk-back. It is just an EXPLANATION (patently fraudulent) for WHY Obama is holding border security hostage: he has to in order to appease his base.

Typical Obama buck passing. He never deviates one inch from his own thug agenda, but he constantly dodges and evades just as an expression of his fundamentally dishonest character.

About Me

Here is a short bio I sent to press people covering the Flight 93 memorial debacle. My training is as an economist. I was in the PhD program in economics at Stanford until my research led me more towards moral theory and constitutional law, at which point I dropped the program and started working on my own. I was writing a book on republicanism (the system of liberty under law) for World Ahead Publishing when I discovered that the Flight 93 memorial was going to be a terrorist memorial mosque. World Ahead agreed to first publish my book about this rehijacking of Flight 93 (Crescent of Betrayal, temporarily available for free download at CrescentOfBetrayal.com). This is not my first venture into journalism. Over the years I have been a writer, opinions editor, and advisor for Stanford’s conservative campus newspaper The Stanford Review, and am currently on the Review’s board of directors.